The Orville Wiki:Staff
The Staff of The Orville Wiki are users with special tools to maintain and enforce policy across the website. It is highly encouraged that all new users read about their privileges, duties, and limitations before editing. Purpose The Orville Wiki is a community which strives to act as a center of information and a hang-out spot for fans of the television series The Orville. To ensure the continued quality of the Wiki, certain users are granted special tools to hold order and enforce policy guidelines. Depending on which position a staff member holds, tools may include special editing privileges, the ability to censor or suspend disruptive users, and more. Staff members expected to always help fellow users and guide them on how to be productive contributors to the Wiki. It should be noted that staff members are not Wiki employees and do not possess the ability to run the community however they want. They are simply users entrusted with special privileges and are bound by checks and balances established to prevent the abuse of power should it arise. Positions Staff on The Orville Wiki functions in the form of a hierarchy similar to the Planetary Union, with each position having responsibilities for specific sections of the website: Administrator Administrators are the highest staff rank a user on the Wiki can be promoted. They are expected to assist in maintaining all aspects of the website and as such are granted extended tools such as the ability to block disruptive users, operate official Wiki Bots, and edit behind-the-scenes functions of the community such as MediaWiki, local CSS, and the front page. Administrators are also granted the same tools Content, Discussions & Chat moderator positions entail. Bureaucrats are almost identical to Administrators, the only signifiant difference being that Bureaucrats have the tools to physically promote users to desired staff positions. They are treated & held to the same standards as Administrators. Current Administrators: *FishTank (Bureaucrat) *Blizzard1289 (Bureaucrat) *UnionPointDropout Content Moderator Content Moderators are staff members who are charged with the maintenance and management of the Wiki's mainspace articles. They are expected to frequently make productive contributions to articles, revert vandalism or false information with the Rollback tool, protect high traffic pages, and delete otherwise unnecessary and/or unproductive pages. Content Moderators are also granted Custodian rights which allow them to rename and move images to different namespaces. It is highly encouraged one becomes familiar with the responsibilities of a Content Moderator before, potentially, being promoted to Administrator. Current Moderators: * MrThermomanPreacher Discussions Moderator Discussions Moderators are staff members who are charged with maintaining an organized environment on the Wiki's Discuss forums. Their position requires them to often posting high quality comments, answering questions users post about the show or otherwise, closing unproductive and/or disruptive threads, deleting troublesome comments, and editing posts submitted to Discuss. Discussions Moderators are also tasked with enforcing policy for blogs and the comment sections of mainspace articles. Chat Moderator Chat Moderators are staff members who are charged with the moderation of the Wiki's local livechat. Their expectations include spending significant amounts of time in the chat during its active hours to make sure it remains a friendly & welcoming environment. They also expected to kick disruptive users from the chat if they misbehave and/or break policy, proceeding to ban them if they continue to act poorly. All other staff position are given Chat Moderator rights in addition to their other tools. Most of the following expectations apply to them as well, the exception being the time needed to be on Chat. Other staff position have no obligation to spend extended periods of time on the Chat as per their position they have other Wiki responsibilities that take precedence. Blocking The act of Blocking is a severe action prohibiting the targeted user from contributing to the Wiki for a determined amount of time. For this reason, there are strict guidelines and heavy regulation on a Staff member's ability to perform this: *Blocking should only be performed if a user has severely violated the General Guidelines or Manual of Style or if they continue committing minor infractions on a consistent basis. However, it is required Administrators treat blocking as they would Wiki policy, as something that should be done within context on a case to case basis. **Administrators do not have the right to block at their own discretion. A user can only be blocked if they have clearly violated an established Wiki policy. Blocking due to what the staff member believes "should" be a rule is not an acceptable use of this tool. *;Ex. An Administrator can't block a user because they violated a rule recognized by the Memory Alpha Wiki that doesn't exist in this community, even if they happen to agree with it. *It is mandatory to warn a user before blocking them. Preferably explaining that they have committed an offense against the community guidelines and should cease such behavior. Remember Hanlon's Razor. **There are exceptions to this however for instances of obvious poor intent. Prime examples being page vandalism and the solicitation of unwanted imagery, which warrant instant bans. *First time bans cannot exceed three days for most offenses. Second time offenses are a week, third time a month, and if a user is banned a fourth time the block will likely be indefinite. **While the etiquette for first time offenders is always expected to be adhered to, there are situations where month long or indefinite blocks are not always necessary or completely fair and therefore can be ignored in specific situations. *Soliciting pornographic or violent media to the Wiki is considered a more severe offense and if violated will lead to a minimum ban of Two Weeks, though it can possibly be indefinite depending on a seriousness of what is posted. *Spammers or advertising bots are to be indefinitely banned at first sight. No exceptions. *Administrators cannot prohibit a user from editing their own message wall. Communication is key to understanding why one has been blocked and how they can improve themselves, locking them out of this feature by default is counterproductive to our ideals. This is true for all but infinitely banned accounts, where Message Board editing should be disabled. **However, if said blocked user abuses their message board privileges by further violating policy or begin to spam threads, Administrators have the right to disable their message board editing in those cases. *Alt accounts used by blocked users should be banned for the same amount of time as their main account. If a user attempts to bypass a block by using an alternate account, the block they currently have is bumped up to the next highest setting. *;Ex. Three day block being bypassed by an alt would turn into a one week block. One week block being bypassed by an alt would turn into a one month block, etc. *Our Community prefers to rehabilitate users as opposed to leaving them permanently unable to contribute. Do not treat blocking as a means to "punish" a user for bad behavior, but rather as a means for them to reflect on their poor judgement and improve once they are permitted to return. Page Protection The ability to protect pages is a necessary tool for defending high traffic pages from edit warring, vandalism or any recurring problems that could be degrading the article's quality. However, making a page only able to be edited by certain members of the community is a significant power and must only be used in the necessary circumstances: *Mainspace Wiki pages can only be staff protected for at maximum, one month. There is never a case where a page would need to be indefinitely protected so that only Staff Members are able to edit. For that goes against the very idea of our Wiki, being a community anyone can edit. **Templates, the front page, staff member profiles, etc, however are able to be indefinitely protected for Administrators and Content Moderators only. Unlike the Mainspace wiki articles, ordinary users generally have no reason to be editing maintenance or personal pages. *Featured articles are all expected to be semi-protected indefinitely due to their advertising on the front page making them at higher risk for vandalism by new and/or unregistered users. Semi-Protection can also be used for pages that are receiving high amounts of vandalism from new users, but seldom any edit warring. As per above, if it's not for a featured article it should never be done for an infinite amount of time *Protecting pages should generally be a last resort in the case that the article in question is suffering from frequent vandalism or continuous edit wars. Before resorting to page protection it is highly advised Administrators simply revert vandalism as they normally would or try to come to an agreement amongst edit warring users. Attitude Staff members are expected to act as role models to the community at large. For that reason there is a behavior etiquette every Moderator or staff position on the Wiki is expected to adhere to: *Staff members are expected to follow the Orville Wiki's General Guidelines with the utmost precision. Unlike with casual users, staff members are held to a higher standard of behavior and are not given the same wiggle room when it comes to occasionally violating policy. **The Manual of Style, while still encouraged to be viewed in a similar light, is not as heavily enforced even amongst the staff. Editing misdemeanors, barring vandalism, are generally not problematic in the same way poor social behavior is and therefore not as debilitating to the website. Do not mistake this point as a reason to not follow the Manual of Style. It should still be adhered to by every user assuming context justifies it. *Staff members cannot exhibit elitism towards ordinary users or staff "below" them. We are all equals in this community, and those with tools are simply users who have been trusted to perform a necessary service. That is all, and treating anyone's opinions or value as a contributor based solely upon there rank or lack thereof is not acceptable. *Message boards of staff members are expected to always be open. It is mandatory that when a message is left for a staff member, it is responded to and/or answered in no more than three days time. *Users who are staff members must have regular editing or community activity on the Wiki. Inactive users holding staff positions can be confusing to new editors and create issues if they return after a long hiatus, unaware of changes that might've been made in the community. In order to be considered "active" a staff member must contribute to the Mainspace articles, Chat, or Discuss at least twice a week, however more is always better. Editing their profile or other such unproductive contributions do not count towards proving an active status. **If a staff member is forced to suddenly leave the Wiki due to an emergency regarding their health, loved ones, or anything serious they are able to make a special request to retain their tools in spite of being inactive for an undetermined amount of time. We would only ask that the community or a fellow staff member is informed before taking leave. *The most important aspect of any staff member on the Orville Wiki is to be friendly, open, and helpful to all editors in our community. Willing to help them with problems whenever asked, displaying patience, and showing an open minded attitude towards all ideas. Condescension, obstinance, and general arrogance is not prohibited. In other words don't be a jerk. *Failure for Staff Members to adhere to these written policies without good reason are subject to demotion from their position via consensus. Promotion In order to gain staff positions an ordinary user must be promoted by a FANDOM Staff member or a local Bureaucrat. *To be promoted a user must be nominated via a Wiki Consensus in the Discuss Section or within the blogs. Article comment sections, user message boards, and the live chat are not appropriate places to host a promotion. A user is only promoted if they receive the majority of support votes in favor of their promotion. *In order for a user to be applicable for nomination or application they must have a fluent knowledge on the television series the Wiki is based on and an appreciation of The Orville brand. *They must fluently follow the rules established on this page in addition to the Manual of Style & General Guidelines to a satisfactory level. *They must be knowledgable on the mechanics in the area they are trying to become Staff in. *;Ex. A Chat Moderator nominee must be knowledgable on the Chat, a Discussions Moderator nominee must be knowledgable on discuss, etc. *They must have a minimum of 250 mainspace edits or 100 discuss posts before promotion of any kind. **Chat Moderators, as per the nature of the Chat, do not have any editing requirements. *Even if a user is lacking in a few sections, an exception can be made if the community truly deems them worthy or they show incredible expertise in one particular skill. *If in the event the Wiki has no active staff members and is in need of some sort of authority figure, a user can be promoted even if they do not follow these guidelines. Site Maintenance An important aspect of staff members, in particular Administrators/Bureaucrats, are the under the hood aspects of maintaining the website, keeping all the mechanicals parts of it up and running to the best of their abilities: *Administrators and Content Moderators have exclusive permission to edit the front page. There, they can add featured articles, news blogs, or update the information accordingly. While they cannot edit it to their leisure no Consensus is required to make changes there. **Staff members cannot add featured articles personally chosen by them. Choosing an article to be featured on the front page is something that must be done through Consensus first. Once an agreement has been confirmed by the community only then are they able to add it. *Administrators exclusively have the right to edit the Wiki's Top Navigation, Theme Designer, and CSS code. As with editing the front page, Admins require no community permission to make changes to these aspects of the website. *Administrators have the right to edit Wiki rule pages such as the Manual of Style, General Guidelines, and this very document. They cannot add, omit, or alter any policies on personal discretion alone. Administrators can only edit pages of this nature if the community naturally begins to follow a certain style of conduct and/or one begins to never be properly enforced or cared about. They are also expected to add or remove any policies they have been approved or dismantled by community consensus. **While Admins do have the right to make limited changes to rule pages, any decisions they make are open to scrutiny and/or consensus from any user. The only exception being rules that are omitted or added as the result of a separate consensus. In which case no explanation is necessary. *Staff members are able to edit Wiki Templates by removing and/or adding certain fields for similar reasons explained above. *Administrators are able to manage and promote the website on official social media accounts that are attached to the Wiki. **Popular websites don't often require more than one official Orville Wiki representitive, and for that reason the creation of new accounts is only applicable to a handful of Administrators. If a social media account's current operator resigns or is otherwise unable to perform their duties they can lease the account information to another Administrator to take over. *If a Staff member makes obviously harmful contributions to important Wiki pages, templates, or social media accounts they can be subject to demotion.